Wherever you’re headed this May Day, expect it to be busy. That’s if you’re lucky enough to get a ticket. With trains sold out, the advice is, “go somewhere else first”. Others are not wasting any time; it’s straight to Thailand for them.
A week from now, many will be about to enjoy the extra 2 days they’ve taken off work in order to give themselves a 9-day holiday; those, plus half a weekend on either side and the statutory 5 days provided by the State.
Such a holiday has been a very long time coming for the bulk of people, and so transport authorities are bracing themselves for a massive uptick in travel.
For the period from 27 April to 4 May, railways across the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) are projecting some 26 million passenger journeys. Assuming that comes to fruition, it shall be a 20 percent increase on the May Day holiday period of 2019.
Furthermore, the YRD has laid on an additional 168 high-speed trains that shall be headed out to farther-flung parts of China over the holiday, in a bid to satisfy the increased demand.
But many are still losing out. A Ms. Yu, who lives in Beijing, told China New Finance that she had jumped on the 12306 app early on 15 April, preparing to purchase three tickets to Shanghai for 29 April the moment they went on sale.
No go. Already sold out. Yu’s advice is to first visit a smaller nearby city, from where there is better chance of buying tickets for the primary destination.
From the standpoint of international travel (remember that?), the top-ten, most-popular destinations for the Chinese this May Day are (in descending order) Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Macau, the USA, Indonesia and the Philippines.
With airlines keen to get us back in the air, such travellers are being spurred on by cheaper tickets too; the average price of outbound, one-way tickets during the holiday is ¥2,564, a year-on-year decrease of 58 percent.
According to data released by travel behemoth, Ctrip, those choosing to escape the Middle Kingdom this May Day are mainly young people. Nearly 70 percent are aged between 18 and 40, while 25 to 35-year olds account for nearly 40 percent, reports Nanjing Daily.
When COVID took it all away from us, many of those now about to head abroad were newly graduated, looking forward to a working life and the accompanying holiday periods. Given events of the last 3 years, it’s not like they haven’t earned the break.
